It feels like Mark Teixeira had a bad month of May. Until tonight’s game he had gone 56 at-bats without a home run, and he went through one five-game stretch with only one hit.

But taken as a whole, May has been a pretty solid month for the Yankees first baseman. He’s hit .281 this month, with six home runs and 25 RBI. It’s not a Hall of Fame month, but it’s not a bad month.

“Overall, I’ll take the May that I’ve had and extrapolate it though the rest of the season,” Teixeira said. “You take two good weeks and two bad weeks and you still have a good month. Unfortunately I did go through a little stretch there in the middle of the month when I didn’t hit the ball well.”

Today was his fourth multi-hit game in the past seven. The power hadn’t come back, but he was showing signs of turning things around again. The 250th home run of his career could hardly have come at a better time.

“I’ve been feeling really good the past couple of days,” Teixeira said. “I think since the second game in Minnesota I’ve been feeling really good at the plate. You have that confidence no matter what the count is, no matter what the situation is. I’m going to put a good swing on it.”

Here’s Teixeira speaking after the game.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here[2]. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• Nick Swisher said he’s OK after slamming into the wall in the seventh. He was a little banged up for a moment, but he stayed in to get a big single in the bottom of the inning. “He said his shoulder’s a little sore,” Joe Girardi said. “He also knocked the wind out of himself. He swung the bat fine after that, but I’m curious to see how he’ll feel tomorrow.”

• Chad Moeller is also fine after having his hand stepped on in the fourth inning. “If he wouldn’t have gotten off of it, it could have been really bad,” Moeller said.

• Girardi on why he didn’t turn the game to Joba Chamberlain in the eighth: “A.J.’s pitch count was fine. He was throwing well. He’d done a good job against Choo and Choo was starting the order. I had Joba up, but as long as A.J. was continuing to get outs I was going to let him go.”

• Girardi had Marcus Thames available on the bench, but he said there was no temptation to pinch hit for Curtis Granderson against the lefty reliever Tony Sipp in the seventh. “Let’s go back to his last at-bat against Sipp the other day,” Girardi said. “He had a double as well. There was no temptation whatsoever.”

• Granderson on the perception that he can’t hit lefties: “It’s been my mark since people started writing about me in Baseball America when I got drafted. I was too slow to play center field. I didn’t have enough power to play in the corners. I was going to be a fourth outfielder. All these different things that people kept saying I can’t do. I always try to prove things wrong, but I still have a long way to go. I haven’t done anything to eliminate all of that conversation.”

• Postgame, Girardi sounded even more optimistic about Jorge Posada than he had been pregame. “If he feels good tomorrow you might even see him run on the field,” Girardi said. “If he’s OK to do that, we could have a player fairly soon.”

• Pretty good line from Swisher about his play for the final out of the fourth, after which he fired the ball to the infield, apparently hoping to get a fourth out. “I’m not going to admit I didn’t know there were three outs,” Swisher said, laughing all the way. “I told Robbie, I just wanted to make sure you had the ball as soon as you could so you could hand it out to one of the kids in the stands.”

• Robinson Cano extended his hitting streak to 13 games. He has 12 hits in his past five games and during the streak is batting .455 with eight doubles and 14 RBI.

• Swisher hit .372 with seven homers and 17 RBI in May. His 32 hits matched the most hits he’s had in any month of his career.

• Derek Jeter now has seven consecutive multi-hit games against Cleveland. His error tonight was his first of the month.

Associated Press photos of Teixeira, Swisher and Gardner, and Gardner scoring in the seventh. Plays at the plate don’t get much closer than Gardner’s slide in the seventh.